UNITED
NATIONS, March 29 (Reuters) - The U.N. peacekeeping department will
send a team to Damascus soon to begin contingency planning for a
possible observer mission to monitor any eventual ceasefire in
conflict-torn Syria, Western diplomats said on Thursday.

The envoys, who were speaking on condition of anonymity,
said the planning for an observer mission in Syria was at a very
early stage, and it was unclear whether such a mission would
ever be deployed. The year-long conflict that has killed
thousands of civilians shows no signs of abating.

"We are very far from a peace to keep," a senior Western
diplomat said.

A spokesman for the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping
Operations did not have an immediate comment. One diplomat said
the U.N. peacekeeping team would arrive in Damascus in the
coming days, but another said no date had been set.

The idea, which U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has
suggested to the Syrian government, is to have a mission of 200
to 250 observers who would be borrowed from other U.N. missions
already deployed in the Middle East and Africa, envoys said.

Missions that could provide observers include the U.N.
Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which patrols a slice of
Syrian territory to maintain a ceasefire with Israel, or the
blue-helmeted peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL.

Deployment of an unarmed monitoring team would require a U.N. Security Council resolution, which means Russia and China
would have to either vote for it or abstain. Moscow and Beijing have
twice vetoed resolutions condemning Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's
assault on pro-democracy demonstrations.

Another senior council diplomat said that for the plan to
get Russian and Chinese acceptance, Syria would have to consent
to it. Several diplomats said the observers would include Arabs
and non-Arabs, though the Arab League, which suspended Syria in
November, would have no formal involvement.

An Arab League monitoring mission last year failed to make
any difference to the crisis.

The United Nations says Assad's forces have killed 9,000
people. Damascus blames foreign-backed "terrorists" for the
violence and says 3,000 soldiers and police have been killed.

Diplomats said there were many unanswered questions about a
possible U.N. observer force for Syria, such as how to ensure
full implementation of Annan's six-point peace plan, not just
selected elements of it, and how to transform a ceasefire into a
political process that does not simply freeze the status quo.

There would also need to be a clear mechanism dealing with
violations of Annan's peace plan, which calls for an end to
violence, dialogue between the opposition and government and a
"political transition" that the opposition hopes will lead to
Assad's ouster.

There is also a question of how such a small mission could
ever provide credible monitoring violence in Syria wherever it
is taking place.

Another problem with such a force is that Syrian security
forces, who have been accused by the opposition of
indiscriminately killing thousands of civilians, would be the
ones providing protection for the monitors.

Assad said on Thursday that Syria would spare no effort to
ensure the success of Annan's peace mission but warned it would
not work without securing an end to foreign funding and arming
of rebels opposing him.